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The hidden energy costs in the wireless cloud

In recent years environmental groups like Greenpeace have campaigned major tech companies like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft to clean up the cloud by focusing on using renewable energy to power data centers that house the servers that store much of our digital information. But a new white paper says that data centers should be the least concerning energy drainer when it comes to the “wireless cloud ecosystem.”

Researchers at The University of Melbourne calculated the energy consumption of the different components that are used to support cloud services accessed through wireless networks. What they found is that energy consumption by the wireless cloud will be massive, and data centers are only a fraction of the problem. Take a look: